


this is how it feels to take a fall

by astro_underscore



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Manipulation, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationships, Protective Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Recovery, Sickfic, Suicidal Thoughts, except it got very out of hand, instant little brother: just add water, technoblade falls victim to the tommyinnit effect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28177578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astro_underscore/pseuds/astro_underscore
Summary: When Tommy’s recklessness finally catches up to him, it’s up to his reluctant housemate to support him through his recovery. With Technoblade at his side and Dream hot on his trail, Tommy finds home in unexpected places, and learns that he’s okay with hitting rock bottom as long as there’s someone willing to catch him.Or: Tommy falls from his cobblestone tower, and Technoblade grows to care more than he ever thought he could.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit, No Romantic Relationship(s), Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 71
Kudos: 1101





	1. icarus

**Author's Note:**

> all characters are dream smp characters, not cc's, and there is absolutely no shipping. i wrote this to prove that i could, and i'd be thrilled to have you along for the ride. the title is from icarus by bastille, for Reasons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> humpty dumpy had a great fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings in the end notes!!

Tommy was one wrong step away from a ten foot drop, and if he was being completely honest, he didn’t give a damn.

He had lost his fear of heights weeks ago, when Dream broke him down until he stopped caring whether he lived or died. Before his exile, he used to build towers for the adrenaline rush, for the way the wind would pluck at his skin and clothes and hair, threatening to send him plummeting to the water below. But there was no water today, just Tommy and several stacks of cobblestone, so there was no safety net as he hauled himself up towards the sky.

He looked down the way people always told him not to, and when a wave of vertigo didn’t follow, he climbed higher, higher, fingers finding handholds on auto-pilot, feet scrabbling over grooves in the stone. His heart thudded steadily in his chest the way it always did, blind to the danger he was in. Now more than ever, he felt like a jumble of disconnected parts.

Tommy reached the top of his half-finished tower and stared out across the snowy plain. Techno’s cabin glowed faintly below, a beacon of mellow golden light. Tommy sucked in a breath of snow-chilled air and set about stacking the cobblestone even higher. By the time he was done with this tower, it would be more than just a tower – it would be proof that he was alive.

As Tommy worked, his head filled with Christmas trees, cobblestone houses, foreboding obsidian walls. His thoughts jostled against each other like passengers on a crowded train, warring for his attention, and it was all Tommy could do to keep his breathing steady as he re-lived those final moments atop the wall until the memory wore thin with overuse. Just thinking about New L’manberg made his stomach twist, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. If he stopped thinking about the nation, the people, the walls, his mind filled with the hard lines of Tubbo’s expression, the acid in his voice as he spat, _Selfish_ , his silence as Tommy was forcibly escorted away.

The memories surrounded him, engulfed him, wrapped him up in the cold comfort of the past. Had he been paying attention, he might have remembered one of the cardinal rules of towering: always watch your step.

Cobblestone shifted abruptly underfoot, jolting Tommy’s centre of gravity. Disoriented, he stumbled backwards and stepped out into the open air, and suddenly he was weightless, drifting, a victim of the laws of physics. Wind caught in his lungs; snow stung his eyes. The world rolled like a spinning top as he fell, battered by a sensation like dozens of tiny pinpricks, then hit the ground with a sickening thud.

Scraped knees, bruised forearms, and sprained wrists were all swallowed up by a brain-rattling impact that sent white-hot pain rocketing through his skull. His vision fizzled out; his thoughts turned to static. The whole world was distance and darkness and air. 

When he came to, it was to an ache so complete he felt like he was drowning in it. Black seeped into his vision like spilled ink, threatening to pull him back under, but he clung to consciousness like a man lost at sea. His stomach churned. His ears rang. He wanted nothing more than to pass out there and then, but he had to stay alert and gauge his injuries. It would do him no good to black out in the middle of a snow flurry, where monsters could stumble across his unconscious body and kill him without resistance – or worse, he could freeze to death.

Pain shot through Tommy’s limbs as he struggled into a sitting position, but it wasn’t until his vision cleared that he realised why. His shins were scratched and bruised, his elbows scraped raw against the ground, while his left wrist jutted at a nauseating angle and twinged whenever he tried to move it. His pickaxe had skittered away on impact, and lay just out of reach.

This was fine. Tommy had gotten into scrapes before and lived to tell the tale – though none quite as serious as this, admittedly, and he’d always had back-up in the form of Wilbur, Tubbo, or Technoblade. Now, he was alone and concussed in the snow, and there would be no one coming to save him if he couldn’t get to safety.

Except – he wasn’t technically alone anymore. Tommy looked towards the blurry glow of Techno’s cabin. Technoblade had left some time ago to collect resources, but he’d be home soon, and then surely he’d help Tommy? He just had to survive until Techno returned. He could do that, easily.

Tommy got to his feet, fighting back a wave of dizziness, and began the slow, painful trek back home.

His muscles immediately protested the movement; he was discovering new aches all over his body, as well as an inconvenient limp he hadn’t noticed while sprawled on the snow. His vision was turning black at the edges, as if he’d lost a staring match with the sun, but he couldn’t pass out again. He couldn’t, he _couldn’t_.

“I’m not gonna fucking die here,” he muttered to himself. “Not yet. Not now.”

Back in the nether, watching the lava swirl through hypnotic currents below, he’d been tempted, but now that he was staring death in the face, he wanted nothing more than to survive. He wanted his friends, his family, his precious discs. He wanted Tubbo to say his name with fondness instead of exasperation, amusement instead of scorn. He wanted _Dream_.

At last he arrived at the cabin, his cheeks swollen, his fingers blue. The doorknob seemed to dodge when he reached for it, forcing him to steady himself on the doorframe, but mere moments later he was tumbling to his knees in the warmth of the cabin, out of the cold and snow. 

Home sweet home – Tommy was so relieved he could have cried.

But he couldn’t rest yet; he had to assess the damage. He checked himself over, cataloguing his injuries as best as he could through the fog in his brain: a sprained wrist here, a surface wound there, a broken rib that made his breath rattle in his lungs. He touched a hand to the bump on his head, hissing when it stung more than he’d anticipated. His fingers came away slick with blood.

 _Fuck_.

Panic swelled inside his chest, but distantly, as if he were watching it from behind a glass wall, “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he muttered, and he crawled to the storage chests, too dizzy to stand.

Healing pots could quickly take care of most fractures and wounds, but they were ineffective when it came to the most insidious damage – and Tommy could feel this concussion burrowing its blackened roots into his brain. He downed a potion anyway, just to ease the pain of his other injuries, then curled up in the fetal position on the floor. It hurt like hell, but he had to hold on until Technoblade arrived. 

Techno would be home soon. Techno would be home soon. Techno would be home soon.

Tommy repeated this mantra until the darkness pulled him under.

***

The first thing Tommy saw when he opened his eyes was Tubbo, but that was nothing unusual, so he rolled over and tried to fall back asleep. It predictably didn’t work; he could feel Tubbo’s gaze boring into the side of his head, waiting for Tommy to acknowledge him, and before long Tommy had opened his eyes and met him halfway.

Tubbo sat cross-legged on the floor, dressed in the same crisp suit he’d worn the last time Tommy saw him, a familiar disc clasped in his hands. Tommy was used to seeing Tubbo by now; he saw him everywhere back in Logstedshire. He hadn’t hallucinated at all since he moved in with Techno, but the concussion must have fucked with his brain chemistry or something, because this Tubbo felt so real it stole the breath from Tommy’s lungs.

Tommy’s vision was a blur, but Tubbo stood out in stark focus, his edges sharp and defined, too pristine to be true. The other Tubbos had seemed wistful, gentle, a blissful dream just out of reach, but this Tubbo was different; he had a hard, cruel set to his mouth, and a flinty stare that reminded Tommy inexplicably of Dream.

“Tubbo,” Tommy murmured, reaching for him instinctively, but Tubbo recoiled from his touch like Tommy was something repulsive, an insect to be crushed underfoot.

“You need to learn to listen, Tommy,” Tubbo said, echoing words Tommy wished he could forget. As he spoke, he tossed Mellohi from his right hand to his left and then back again, a threat or a taunt or a promise. “You were spoiled and rebellious, and look where that got you. Now you’re going to die here all alone, and no one will even miss you. You should have never left Logstedshire. You should have never left _me_.”

“I’m sorry,” Tommy whispered, his voice fracturing like glass. His head still hurt so badly, and now his chest ached as well. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I really mean it, I do.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Tommy,” Tubbo said coldly, and he snapped the disc clean in two.

The door slammed open; Tubbo flickered into nothingness, a mirage on the horizon. Tommy winced as the sudden noise rattled his skull, black splotches flooding his vision once more. He curled in on himself, pressing his hands to his ears to block out the sound of Techno’s heavy footsteps and clinking armour.

“Tommy, I left barely an hour ago!” Techno sounded exasperated, which was more comforting than it probably should have been. “Why the hell is there a cobblestone tower outside? And why are you sleeping on the floor? You literally have a bed!”

Tommy propped himself up on his elbows, squinting against the blinding lantern light. The world was tilting on its axis like a seesaw, and he stared at a point on the far wall until it came to a merciful standstill. “Hit m’head a lil’ bit,” he slurred. “Restin’.”

He touched a hand to his chest, still clogged with a detached tangle of emotions that didn’t entirely belong to him – someone else’s heartbreak, someone else’s pain. When he looked back at Techno, he seemed to have teleported to Tommy’s side. Or maybe Tommy’s brain was just fucking with him; he could feel his grip on reality steadily unravelling.

“Tommy, look at me.” Techno crouched down and rested a hand on Tommy’s shoulder, holding him steady as he inspected his pupils. “Can you tell me where you are?”

“Home,” Tommy mumbled.

“That is literally the most unhelpful answer you could have possibly given me,” Techno said. “I’m gonna lift you now, alright? Don’t freak out.”

Techno picked him up as promised, and Tommy immediately went ragdoll-limp in his arms. Techno’s netherite chestplate dug into his cheek, ice-cold from the frosty weather, and his long hair tickled Tommy’s face to the point of discomfort, but Techno’s presence was so soothing Tommy couldn’t bring himself to care. It was a struggle to manoeuvre Tommy into his raccoon hole without dropping him; in the end, Techno climbed down first and waited at the bottom of the ladder, arms outstretched to catch Tommy when his hand slipped and he half-slid, half-fell the rest of the way.

Once Tommy was safely perched on the edge of his bed, Techno brushed Tommy’s hair away from his forehead and pressed his palm to the cool, clammy skin. When Techno finally pulled away, satisfied that Tommy wasn’t feverish, he felt the loss of contact like a physical ache. Before he could stop himself, he reached for Techno’s wrist and gripped it tight.

“Don’t leave me.” The words sounded pathetic even to Tommy’s ears, but Techno’s expression held no judgement.

“I’m right here, aren’t I?” Techno replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Tommy relaxed minutely, and a flood of words spilled from his dry throat, blending together in his haste to spit them out. “I’ve been hallucinatin’ and shit, Techno. I fell off the fuckin’ tower an’ I hit my head an’ I broke my ribs an’ I had to drink a healing pot an’ I fell asleep an’ then Tubbo was here.”

“Alright, well, _that_ isn’t concerning at all.” The familiar note of sarcasm in Techno’s voice made something thick and painful build in Tommy’s throat. Technoblade continued, not unkindly. “I’ve gotta say, Tommy, you’re telling me a lot of things I don’t wanna hear tonight. Anything else you wanna confess while you’re at it?”

Tommy opened his mouth, then closed it again as his stomach rolled violently. It was all he could do to put his head over the side of the bed before he vomited onto the floor.

“I guess that’s one way to answer.” Technoblade’s voice was as deadpan as ever, but there was a tension to it that hadn’t been there moments before. “That bad, huh?”

‘Bad’ didn’t even begin to describe it; Tommy was a shuddering mess, his muscles twitching and spasming, his breath catching on dry sobs. He pushed his brain to focus, urged his thoughts to flow in the rapid, uncontrolled way they usually did, but his mind was elsewhere. It was floating off into the stratosphere, and it was smashed open at the bottom of a tower in the snow.

He hated this. He _hated_ this. He whined pitifully and threw his arms around Techno’s neck, burying his face in the plush fabric of his cloak. Techno stiffened, then pulled Tommy closer, awkwardly patting the top of his head as he cried and cried and cried.

“It was an accident!” Tommy said, once he’d caught his breath. “It was a fucking accident!”

“I’d be pretty worried if you fell, like, two stories on purpose,” Techno said, which was so hilariously ironic that Tommy’s sobs bubbled into hysterical laughter. “Oh, that’s definitely not good. I know I’m supposed to be comforting you, Tommy, but if you could you go back to crying, that’d be great. I’m not a fan of that laugh.”

Tommy just laughed again; he couldn’t help it, his brain was fucked and he couldn’t _think_. What else was there to do but laugh? “Dream said I wouldn’t do it! But I did do it, Techno, and it was a _complete fucking accident!_ ” 

It was dawning on Tommy, the enormity of it all; his heart was in his throat and it was burning him, choking him, stealing his breath. An inexplicable sense of dread hung over him like a dark cloud, bleak as a premonition of death.

He clung tighter to Techno’s neck, and his bruised ribs jarred uncomfortably against Techno’s armour, and he was probably cutting off Techno’s oxygen supply, but Techno didn’t complain. He simply pressed one hand to Tommy’s back and buried the other in Tommy’s hair, and he listened to Tommy’s nonsensical babbling until Tommy fell asleep, one trembling hand fisted in Techno's velvet cloak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for suicide references, injury/illness, and abuse references (from c!dream) throughout
> 
> also, emetophobia warning - if you're sensitive stop reading at "Anything else you wanna confess while you’re at it?" and start reading again at "‘Bad’ didn’t even begin to describe it..."


	2. lucid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dream pays a visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> technoblade said he wasn't tommy's brother and (after several hours of mourning canon sbi) my response has been to *make* him tommy's brother with my own two hands. i restructured the entire plot so that tommy and technoblade are no longer related, this is now a Found Family story babey!! and i am extremely excited for where it will go
> 
> trigger warnings in the end notes!!

With Tommy’s unconsciousness came blissful silence. 

Alone with the voices, Technoblade could finally collect his thoughts.

He lingered by the ladder, reluctant to leave until he was certain Tommy was firmly asleep. He still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up here; the evening’s events had come seemingly out of nowhere, and the whiplash had left him reeling. Just half an hour ago he’d been complaining to the voices about how the cobblestone eyesore out front would affect his property value, and now here he was, standing in Tommy’s darkened raccoon hole with the smell of vomit in the air, wondering where it all went wrong.

The past fifteen minutes or so had been one of the single most bizarre experiences of his life. Techno remembered how Tommy had clung to him like a drowning man, and he felt an odd sense of unease settle over his shoulders like a shroud. Tommy didn’t _do_ vulnerability – not like this, and certainly never with Techno – and the memory of Tommy’s rattling sobs and dissonant laughter felt _wrong_ , like a discordant note in a piano piece. Techno didn’t know what to make of it – and neither, it seemed, did the voices.

Opinions were split. There were murmurs of concern from the more cautious personalities, and talk of vengeance from the bloodthirsty faction that served Techno’s god – though vengeance for what, Techno had no clue. A third, more irritating group wouldn’t stop awww-ing. Techno picked out the word _Technosoft_ from the stream of endearments, and he shook his head, unimpressed.

“It wasn’t a hug, guys,” Techno said. “He was literal seconds away from puking his brains out again, I was just trying to get him to relax– I’m not gonna hug him, guys, stop asking.”

The voices didn’t stop asking, but Techno had expected that; he knew they could sense his disquiet, and were teasing him to lighten the mood. He tuned them out, focusing his attention on the fetch quest at hand. From the basement, he dug out a mop and bucket; from the ground floor, a bottle of water for when Tommy inevitably awoke tasting hell in his mouth. He filled the bucket with soapy water, his mind stuck on the way Tommy had gripped his cloak with trembling hands and begged him not to leave. With every passing moment spent lost in thought, his unease only grew.

He’d never seen Tommy look so broken before.

It was easy to forget that beneath all the bluster and posturing and stubbornness, Tommy was a kid. He was a gangly sixteen year old with a mountain of issues and a shitty, underdeveloped frontal cortex, and now Techno was the only adult within a ten mile radius. Techno wasn’t the nurturing type, but even he knew that left him with certain responsibilities he hadn’t anticipated when he’d agreed not to turn Tommy out into the cold – the first being not letting him die from a preventable injury. Not that this situation was Techno’s fault; Tommy was Tommy, and if anyone could find a way to liquify their brain matter in the measly hour Techno has been gone, it would be him.

At least the kid didn’t have a fever. Techno’s medical knowledge stretched about as far as healing pots and gapples, and he had no idea what to do if Tommy started burning up.

_CHECK ON TOMMY IS TOMMY OKAY GO SEE HIM GO LOOK–_

“Guys, guys, relax,” Techno said. “I’m gonna head down there in a minute, what do you think all this stuff is for? You think I’m cleaning for fun? You think Technoblade has time for _chores_? You fools, you fools.”

If Techno was being completely honest, this routine was getting kind of stale. He was a retired fighter, not a babysitter; he wasn’t interested in playing happy families, no matter what the voices said. His only concerns were saving Phil, dismantling the government, and keeping Tommy from a premature death.

Techno took the ladder down to the raccoon hole, careful not to let the bucket tip. Tommy was still soundly asleep – good. Techno deposited the water bottle on top of the Prime log, then set about cleaning up the sticky mess Tommy had left on the floor, cursing Tubbo’s corrupt administration every step of the way.

The exile had been amusing at first, ironic even – the great Theseus, scorned by the very nation he fought for, finally knocked down a peg or two. It wasn’t so funny now that Techno was ankle deep in a pool of vomit, and Theseus lay barely a metre away, delirious, unconscious, and unmistakably a fucking teenager.

The voices were complaining again, this time about the stench. Techno rolled his eyes. “You’re all weak. You were the ones that wanted this, not me. Can’t handle a little vomit? Don’t ask me to take in a kid.”

That shut them up, affording Techno a blissful minute of silence while he finished the job. Once the floor was pristine – or at least clean enough for Techno to conceal the stain with a hastily crafted rug – Techno dunked the mop into the water bucket one last time, and made the mistake of glancing at Tommy.

In the dim lighting, Tommy looked smaller than Techno had ever seen him, his face pale and drawn, his hands gripping the blanket like it was a lifeline. If it weren’t for his twitching eyelids and drooping mouth, he might have resembled a corpse – but that motion meant Tommy was in pain, and that pain meant that for the moment, he was alive.

Tommy didn’t wake when Techno knelt down at his bedside, nor did he stir when Techno tugged his blanket up to his chin. He simply lay there, too still, too quiet, and he didn’t look like the Tommy who had fought tooth-and-nail for independence, who had weathered betrayal after betrayal, who had called Techno _the Blade_ with such pride in his voice, then trampled all over his ideals.

He didn’t look anything like Tommy at all.

Techno stared for longer than he’d intended, then shook his head. There was nothing he could do for Tommy now besides let him rest. 

The main room was refreshingly bright after the raccoon hole’s sickly gloom, and Techno stretched his aching limbs, breathing easy for the first time since he’d found Tommy half-hysterical on the floor. He’d made plans to venture into L’manberg today to search for his stolen weapons, but he’d have to call a rain check on that in case Tommy’s condition suddenly deteriorated. His new day plan was simple: make sure Tommy didn’t die.

This proved to be harder than Techno had anticipated; Tommy woke infrequently, distressed and delirious, and couldn’t keep down food. Techno tried to steal pockets of quiet time throughout the day to plan the details of his next expedition, but the voices grew louder and more agitated the longer he left Tommy alone, and eventually he fell into the routine of checking in every half hour, too restless to stay away for long.

Typical. Even while unconscious, Tommy managed to be a nuisance. As if it wasn’t enough that Tommy was a drain on his resources, he wouldn’t even allow Techno room to _think_.

That night, Techno barely slept. The voices were too loud, too active, and for once Techno didn’t feel like telling them to shut up. They voiced their worries, murmured warnings, nagged Techno to check on Tommy every hour like clockwork. Techno obliged, but not because they told him to – the longer Tommy drifted in a sickly haze, the more Techno’s ever-present sense of dread swelled to fill his chest. Tommy was a nightmare to wrangle on the best of days, but Techno would be lying if he pretended he wasn’t desperate for him to be Tommy again.

By his third day living from hour to hour, Techno was exhausted and jittery. He brought Tommy breakfast that he knew the kid wouldn’t eat, and picked at his own breakfast until long after it went cold.

At around noon, his comm buzzed – an incoming message from Dream. Techno read it four times over, dull anxiety making a home in his gut.

[ _hey i’m on the way to your house, need to have a chat with you_ ]

It had to be about Tommy. What else could Dream want from him?

In the past, Techno had never had a problem with Dream. He was generous, cryptic, maybe a little awkward, but who didn’t have their flaws? Sure, he was a little too close to an authority figure for Techno’s liking, but Techno wasn’t exactly eager to challenge a man with access to creative mode. 

Lately, though, he’d been having doubts.

It unsettled him, the way Tommy spoke about Dream – with a fondness bordering on reverence, and an underlying sense of fear that stirred some long-dormant protective instinct in Techno’s chest. Plus, the voices despised him, and that was never a good sign. 

The voices were a part of Techno, but they didn’t come from within; they knew things Techno didn’t, and whenever Dream came up in conversation, there was an explosion of furious activity, dozens of overlapping voices clamoring for Techno’s attention. And while the voices weren’t always honest with him, this level of emotional investment was impossible to fake. Together, they seemed to be yelling, _PROTECT HIM_.

“I’m protecting him, guys, I’m protecting him,” Techno murmured, sending off his coordinates. If it came down to it, he’d try his best to keep Tommy hidden. He owed Tommy that much at the very least.

Tiredness all but forgotten, Techno threw himself into erasing any and all signs of Tommy’s presence. First, the hell tower – its structure was pretty flimsy, and Technoblade made swift work of disassembling it using copious amounts of scaffolding and the same netherite pickaxe he’d used to shatter Quackity’s teeth. Then he reorganised the chests that Tommy had raided, took down the to-do list in the basement, and splashed a still-sleeping Tommy with the most potent invisibility pot in his collection.

After a long moment of deliberation, he covered up the entrance to the raccoon hole for good measure, and prayed to every deity he knew that Tommy wouldn’t wake up until after Dream left. There was no way Tommy was stable enough to process Dream’s presence right now, and if Dream discovered Tommy in his current state, well… 

Techno would tackle that eventuality if and when it happened.

He rolled his shoulders, his nerves jittering. Under normal circumstances, he worked pretty well under pressure, but people were different – he never knew what to expect. Dream was after Tommy, that much was for sure, and Techno couldn’t give him Tommy. A pretty glaring conflict of interests there. Techno didn’t doubt that this would go horribly wrong.

There came a knock on the door, measured and polite.

Techno was about to speak to the man who haunted Tommy’s every waking hour, and he had no idea how to feel about it. 

***

For what felt like an eternity, Tommy drifted in and out of consciousness, fluctuating between numbness and hot, searing pain. Each time he awoke, Technoblade was there, feeling his forehead, checking his pupils, propping him up and bringing a healing potion to his lips. Tommy was barely lucid enough to understand what Technoblade was saying, and on the rare occasions where he did pick up a word or two, the memory deserted him the moment he slipped back into the dark.

Techno must have extinguished the lanterns while Tommy slept, because the raccoon hole was blissfully dim. Shadows writhed in the corners of the room, which meant Tommy was seeing shit again, but he wasn’t as concerned about that as he probably should have been. He was too tired to worry about anything right now; it was as if his body had gotten a taste of rest and now he couldn’t get enough of it. The tide of sleep kept dragging him under and spitting him back out, blurring the line between dream and reality. 

At last he awoke feeling semi-lucid, and he stared up at the ceiling, his thoughts slipping from his head and splattering onto the ground below. Tubbo perched at the end of Tommy’s bed, gazing intently at a lodestone compass in his hand. He wasn’t wearing a suit today. Instead, he wore a pair of toffee-brown overalls over a striped t-shirt, a cheerful ensemble from a faraway event that Tommy couldn’t quite remember. Tommy reached for Tubbo, then drew back, a pang of confusion rippling through the fog. 

His arm wasn’t there.

Dazed, Tommy waved his hand in front of his face. There was no mistaking it – if he squinted he could make out the faint outline of his fingers and a subtle blurring effect, but he could otherwise see right through his hand to the ceiling beyond.

“The fuck?” he murmured.

“Invisibility potion,” Tubbo said absently, still staring at the compass.

Tommy looked at Tubbo through his translucent hand, and the effect was so jarring it made his head throb. When he looked _through_ his hand, everything else blurred, but Tubbo remained as crisp and clear as ever, almost as if he were simultaneously in front of the hand and behind it. Tommy couldn’t even begin to process it, not in his current cotton-brained state, so he let the question trickle away like sand between his fingers. If he thought about it any longer, he was going to break his brain.

“Give me my compass back,” Tommy murmured. “It’s mine, so… so don’t fuckin’ touch it.”

“It’s _my_ compass, actually. See?” Tubbo held out the compass, and the needle swung around to point not at the Whitehouse, where it _should_ have pointed had it been Tommy’s real lodestone compass, but directly at Tommy. The sight filled Tommy’s chest with a distant sort of heartache.

“Tubbo threw his compass away,” Tommy said bitterly. “You’re not real.”

Tubbo glanced upwards, his eyebrows knitted with concentration, then pointed to the ceiling.

“No,” Tubbo agreed. “But _he_ is.”

That’s when Tommy noticed it: the house was far too loud. There were two sets of footsteps above them, two voices conversing, one of them comfortingly familiar and the other one painfully so.

 _Dream_.

Tommy stared up at the ceiling, pinned in place by a dizzy sort of shock. That was Dream’s voice; Tommy couldn’t make out the words, but he would recognise that slow, syrupy drawl anywhere. It was achingly familiar to him: the careful way he chose his words, laying them out flat in precise, impactful rows, the way his voice wormed itself into Tommy’s brain and held more weight than his own thoughts. 

His breathing quickened. Was this a hallucination, too? But Tubbo had said it was real, and Tubbo would know, being not-real himself. Tommy looked to Tubbo for guidance, but his expression was inscrutable. In one swift motion, he hopped down from the bed and pocketed the compass.

“Whatever you do, Tommy, don’t make a sound,” Tubbo said, and then he disappeared into the tunnel at the far end of the room.

Tommy clamped his mouth shut, closed his eyes. He could hear Dream’s voice rumbling through the basement floor. Dream was close, impossibly close, closer than he’d been since he blew up Logstedshire along with the last of Tommy’s hopes. If Tommy called for him now, he would come running. But Tommy couldn’t.

Couldn’t he?

No, he _couldn’t_.

It was all too complicated; his brain was falling apart at the seams. 

Dream was a dick. Dream was his friend. Tommy missed him so badly it hurt, and he never wanted to see him again.

Finally, the house fell silent. Pulse slowing, Tommy dared to open his eyes. Then a glimmer of light broke through the ceiling hatch, and Technoblade climbed into view. Tommy felt sick with relief.

“Seriously, Tommy? Of all the times you could have woken up, you chose _now_?” Techno made his way to Tommy’s bedside, his voice thick with dismay. “You couldn’t have waited literally half an hour?”

“How did you know I was awake? I’m all invisible and shit.”

Tommy’s invisibility chose that precise second to run out, and Technoblade laughed at his expense. “Spoke too soon, nerd. You lucid now?”

“I’m here,” Tommy said. “Yesterday I wasn’t, so that’s cool.”

Technoblade made a complicated face. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s been about three days since you were last a person.”

Tommy didn’t know what to say to that; he just stared incredulously, trying and failing to herd his thoughts into a coherent sequence. It was true that his head hurt a worrying amount, but had he really spent three whole days completely out of it? He had noticed time passing, the same way he instinctively knew this wasn’t his first time awake, but his mind was a haze and he couldn’t piece together his fragmented memories into a picture that made sense.

Techno studied his face and must have been satisfied with what he saw, because he said, “It’s good to have you back, Tommy.”

Tommy’s focus trailed over the ceiling, then drifted to the tunnel through which Tubbo had disappeared. “Do you think Dream–” He broke off, inhaling shakily. There was an inferno behind his eyelids, and it was melting his waxen thoughts into a puddle. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter.”

Technoblade frowned. “You’d better get some rest, Tommy. You’re awake, not recovered.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Tommy said sourly. “Because it _fucking hurts_.”

“It wouldn’t hurt if you were asleep,” Techno pointed out, and then he made for the ladder. “Goodnight, Tommy.”

 _He was leaving, he was leaving_ – Tommy’s mind went blank with panic, and before he could stop himself, he reached out and caught Techno’s cloak. Techno turned, one eyebrow raised, and Tommy dropped the cloak like it had burned him. He felt abruptly childish, and it made him want to shrivel up and die.

“Don’t you want to know?” Tommy blurted, tripping over his tongue in his haste to spit the words out. “About Dream and– and– about everything? ‘Cos you’re just letting me stay here and making sure I don’t die and I haven’t told you anything, anything at all. You don’t think that’s really fucking selfish of me?”

A brittle silence stretched between them, and Tommy swallowed, wishing he’d never woken up in the first place. He didn’t want to look at Techno for fear of what he might see, but he had to know what Techno thought of him, had to know if he’d overstepped, if he should apologise and plead for leniency. 

So Tommy looked. He expected anger, disgust, annoyance, pity. What he saw made him feel unmoored, like a boat lost at sea. 

Technoblade’s gaze wasn’t sympathetic, but neither was it cruel. It lay in a strange no man’s land between patience and pragmatism, and Tommy couldn’t hope to decipher what it meant. “I’m not gonna ask, Tommy,” he said evenly. “You know I’m never gonna ask.”

“Maybe you should,” Tommy muttered, but he was out like a light before Techno could respond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for hallucinations/concussions/bad medical stuff throughout, you know the drill
> 
> tw for the effects of emotional abuse (from c!dream)
> 
> major tw warning for emetophobia for several paragraphs at the beginning of technoblade's pov, it's safe to read from the line "In the dim lighting, Tommy looked smaller..."


	3. company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tommy is never alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i will be honest with you guys - i got caught up in the devastating c!tommy-techno split up and forgot i was writing this. it's the hyperfixation brain!! but i am back in denial mode and i will continue to write about tommy and techno having a positive relationship, because canon is making me terribly sad and found family is the only remedy
> 
> thank you for all the kudos and comments!! i didn't expect such a positive reception and all the feedback and kind words really do help motivate me! and special shout out to the commenter who has suffered a total of 6 (six?????) concussions because I Fear For Their life
> 
> chapter trigger warnings in the end notes!! please let me know if there's anything else you think i should tag!

These days, Tommy was never alone.

The longer he spent bedridden, the more Technoblade seemed to just _hover_ _,_ as if he were bound to Tommy’s bedside by an invisible rope. He rarely spoke except to ask about Tommy’s head, and Tommy was far too exhausted to carry a conversation, but it was nice to just sit with Techno while he skimmed hefty hardbacks or sharpened his treasured axe. 

Sometimes Tommy heard muffled music – the subtle chiming of his Cat disc, or the sombre waltz of his Mellohi. Technoblade never seemed to notice the music, which meant it was all in Tommy’s head, but Tubbo always bopped his head along to the melody, a serene smile on his face. On the rare occasion that Techno wasn’t around, Tubbo would perch on the edge of Tommy’s bed and they would listen together in the dark, their memories on the bench reflected in a twisted funhouse mirror.

This wasn’t Tommy’s Tubbo – he was too cold, too quiet, too cruel. But Tommy would take the company of a spectre over no company at all. 

“I keep seeing him, Tubbo,” Tommy murmured one night. “In my dreams and shit. Whenever I close my eyes.”

“You keep seeing me, too,” Tubbo pointed out. “I’ll be honest, Tommy, you should probably see a therapist about that. I’m back in New L’Manberg, remember? Without you.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“If I fuck off, you’ll be alone.” Tubbo’s voice was matter-of-fact, but it stabbed like a knife. “If that’s what you want, I won’t stop you, but you really don’t help yourself, Tommy. You don’t make it easy to love you.”

It wasn’t normal to see the spectre of your old best friend – Tommy _knew_ that, but it wasn’t like he could make Tubbo leave. Even if he did, it wouldn’t solve the root of the problem. He could feel it deep inside his brain, a sense of wrongness that ate at him, a constant discordant harmony as dark and foreboding as his Mellohi. There was something seriously wrong with him, and there had been for a while.

“We’re so much happier without you,” Tubbo whispered. “Are you ever coming home?”

What a stupid fucking question. The real Tubbo wouldn’t even have to ask.

Hours passed in a daze. Every so often Techno brought him meals that he couldn’t choke down, and Tommy slept the rest of the time, the music following him into his dreams.

A day or a week or a century into the haze, and Tommy was staring at the ceiling in the darkened raccoon hole when two thoughts struck him like bolts of lightning, disconcerting in their clarity. 

His first thought: _I could have died._

His second thought: _Dream knows._

The enormity of it hit him all at once – two sets of footsteps, and Dream’s syrupy smooth voice rumbling through the ceiling. He scrambled out of bed, steadying himself on the headboard as a wave of dizziness threatened to bowl him over. The dizziness faded; his stomach settled. His head felt clearer than it had in weeks, and clambering up the ladder was easier than he’d anticipated. He made it to the basement, the ground floor, the front door, before a shadow fell over him and he froze, pinned to the spot by fear. 

“Technoblade, I—”

“What the hell are you doing?” Tommy flinched away instinctively, before Techno’s tone pierced through the fog in his brain. Techno didn’t sound _angry_ _;_ he sounded confused and a little dismayed, as if he’d found a lost object somewhere it didn’t belong. Tommy wasn’t in any danger.

Why had he assumed he was in danger?

Tommy shakily got to his feet, and Technoblade frogmarched him over to the battered armchair and seated him next to the fire. The warmth should have been comforting, but it reminded him of things he’d rather not remember. He closed his eyes and _breathed_ _._

“Dream was here,” Tommy said weakly, opening his eyes and meeting Technoblade’s gaze. “He was– you talked to him.”

“Yeah?” Technoblade averted his eyes, one hand unconsciously smoothing down his braid. “I wasn’t gonna tell you, but he’s come by, uh… a couple times since then. Relax, don’t look at me like that – I’ve been fielding his questions, and he doesn’t know about your little raccoon hole.”

“What the– when did you—” Shock rendered Tommy’s tongue clumsy and useless. “—why the fuck wouldn’t you tell me this?” 

“ _Look_ at you, Tommy,” Technoblade said simply.

White-hot shame swelled in Tommy’s chest. He was pathetic and he knew it, but Technoblade didn’t have to _say_ it. 

“I’m fine.” Tommy got to his feet, and was immediately proven wrong by a wave of lightheadedness. 

Technoblade caught his shoulder, steadied him. “Sure seems like it,” he remarked, and his sarcasm was not lost on Tommy. “How about you _don’t_ undo all the time you spent resting by overexerting yourself too soon?”

“Fuck you,” Tommy said miserably.

Technoblade looked at him, really _looked_ at him, a question in his blood red eyes. Tommy ducked his head and pointedly avoided his scrutiny, but Technoblade must have noticed something regardless, because he bumped his shoulder against Tommy’s, a gesture of solidarity, or sympathy, or encouragement.

“It’s alright, Tommy,” Techno said at last. “You’re alright.”

Something about those words instantly soothed Tommy’s frayed nerves, and the tension drained from his shoulders like water trickling down a drain. For a moment, Tommy considered telling him about Tubbo, but he shook himself – that was a step too far. He hated it here, after all; he hated being vulnerable, he hated feeling broken, he hated that he was going to be bedridden for days at this rate, that Technoblade wouldn’t stop using that infuriating deadpan that made him so hard to read.

More than anything, he hated that he didn’t want Techno to leave him.

Because the truth was, he trusted Techno. He didn’t know if he should – no, he definitely shouldn’t, the man had destroyed L’manberg, had ruined everything Tommy had worked for. But at the same time, he was helpful and generous and surprisingly patient, and he never pried into Tommy’s business or made him do anything he didn’t want to do. Tommy wasn’t used to keeping things, let alone receiving things, but here he could take whatever he wanted and Techno didn’t lift a finger. Tommy didn’t really understand it, but it almost seemed like Techno… cared.

Probably. Maybe. Tommy’s head was still so muddled; if he let himself dwell on it too long, his thoughts inevitably wandered back to Dream, and he wasn’t ready to revisit that part of his life yet. Or any part of his life. The past was better off staying in the past. Tommy would keep moving forward at breakneck speed until he either forgot about it, or it caught up to him.

And it hadn’t caught him yet.

***

The next time Techno shook him awake, Tommy was sick of being pathetic. When Techno passed him a bowl of mushroom stew, Tommy slowly and deliberately tipped it onto Techno’s boots.

“Oops,” Tommy said.

Techno didn’t say anything, likely because shouting at a concussion victim was medically frowned upon, but when he returned with a second bowl, his expression was steely.

“Drop this one and we’re gonna have a problem,” Technoblade said.

Tommy scowled. “I’m not hungry, dickhead.”

Technoblade inhaled, exhaled, and pressed the bowl firmly into Tommy’s hands. “Tommy,” he said sternly, “if you fall twenty blocks and _starvation_ is what finally kills you, I am going to march down to hell, personally resurrect you, and then kill you again. Now _eat.”_

Well, there was no arguing with that. Tommy spooned stew into his mouth, silently daring Technoblade to comment on how slowly he was moving, as if it took extra effort to hold himself steady.

He managed several bites before his pace began to slow. “This fucking sucks,” he muttered.

“I mean, you did scramble a good few brain cells out there,” Technoblade said, “and if I’m being completely honest, I’m not sure you had enough of those to justify such a risky stunt. Think about your psychological economy, Tommy, it’s supply and demand—”

“Oh, you’re doing it again, you’re just saying loads of words!” Tommy whined, then broke off, his temples throbbing in protest. “You are such a fucking dickhead,” he continued, in a voice that was almost, but not quite, an indoor voice. “My head hurts so bad, I don’t even know what you’re saying half the time.”

“How is it?” Technoblade asked. “Your head, I mean.”

Tommy glanced upwards, as if he could catch a glimpse of his thoughts in motion. “I dunno how to explain it. It’s like my brain’s outside my head. I’m trying to think but there’s just fuzz and cotton wool and shit.”

Technoblade considered this, then shrugged. “Guess I’ll just have to think for the both of us.”

He sat down at the end of the bed, where Tubbo usually sat, and Tommy shuffled away from him on instinct. An invisible chasm spanned the distance between them, vast and isolating. Tommy twisted his blankets in his hands and stubbornly avoided eye contact. 

His memories of that first, horrible day were hazy, but if he remembered anything, it was his humiliating freak out. In all fairness, he had fallen about twenty blocks with minimal armour, but it still wasn’t his proudest moment, and his cheeks burned with shame whenever he recalled the way he’d clung to Technoblade like a child in need of comfort, as if he weren’t two years shy of adulthood.

He was sixteen years old, for God’s sake. He wasn’t some stupid kid, he didn’t need an adult, and he certainly didn’t need whatever _this_ was. All of Technoblade’s kindness – if it could even be called kindness, coming from a literal war criminal – was long overdue.

He could feel Technoblade’s gaze on him. For a man so reclusive, he could be irritatingly perceptive. “Tommy, I’m not gonna judge you for something you did while your brain was soup. Concussions are no joke, alright?”

“Good,” Tommy said. “Because I’m no pussy.”

He picked at his frayed bedsheets and refused to meet Techno’s eyes. Technoblade stayed silent, as if he were waiting for something, and when a response didn’t come he just shook his head and looked away.

“Alright then,” he said. “Well, glad to have you back. Just wasn’t the same around here without you being unnecessarily rude literally all the time.”

“Name one time I have ever been rude,” Tommy said automatically, then reconsidered. “No, actually, don’t– oh, stop laughing, you massive dick!”

“One time? _One time?_ I could give you an entire list, Tommy!”

“I bet you couldn’t actually.”

“I absolutely could,” Technoblade said. “Exhibit A, the tower you built on _my_ property. It was so glaringly obvious I had to take the whole thing down.”

Tommy opened his mouth, but no words came out. He felt a hot, indignant fury well in his chest. “You took down my tower?”

“Seriously, Tommy?” Technoblade’s expression was incredulous. “You mean the hideous cobblestone structure literally twenty feet from my house? The exact kinda cobblestone structure you are _known_ for building? I didn’t have a choice, Tommy! If I left it up and Dream found you, the voices would’ve pinned it on me.” 

He was speaking logically, but Tommy didn’t care about logic. He cared about his tower, destroyed without his permission the same way Technoblade had destroyed L’Manberg, the same way Dream had destroyed Logstedshire. Except– did Technoblade destroy L’Manberg? Hadn’t that been Wil– 

He shook his head – he couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ think about that right now. “You took down my tower,” he repeated, his voice hard with fury.

“Do you _want_ to get caught?” Technoblade had begun to pace, and it was making Tommy dizzy. “Because all I’d hear for weeks on end would be, _‘Why didn’t you protect him, Technoblade? He’s just a kid, Technoblade. You’re a monster, Technoblade.'_ Screw the voices! If Dream had seen the tower, that would have been on _you_ for building an easily identifiable cobblestone monstrosity right outside your safe house!”

Tommy’s head hurt. Tommy’s heart hurt. It was too loud, too bright, and his hands moved instinctively to shield his ears.

“You don’t mean that,” he murmured.

Technoblade seemed to clock that he’d struck a nerve, and his anger dissipated at once, replaced by a stiff sort of caution. “Tommy, I’m not gonna sell you out,” he said, softer this time. “Like I said, the voices would never forgive me. I’d hear nothing but ‘Tommy is Gone’ and ‘Technotraitor’ for the next thousand years– aaaand, they’re doing it. Guys, I haven’t betrayed anyone. Guys, please, Tommy’s right here!”

It was always funny watching Techno make asides to the voices, and laughter bubbled from Tommy’s throat unbidden. He quickly stifled it; he didn’t want to laugh. He was _angry_ _,_ goddamn it. 

Except… he wasn’t. Not really. 

In truth, he felt too drained to be truly furious, as if all the zest had been knocked right out of him. He could hear Cat chiming melodiously in the distance, and he wanted nothing more than to switch it off.

“Do you think Dream misses me?” Tommy asked, staring at the far wall. 

A long pause stretched between them, before Techno replied, “Do you miss him?”

That question brought Tommy pause. _Did_ he miss Dream? He had been kind, when he wasn’t being awful. He had been Tommy’s friend, when he wasn’t being his foe. 

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “Yeah, I really do.”

“Do you want him to find you?”

“No. I mean– maybe?” Tommy shook his head. “No, I can’t. _No_.”

“Then he’s not gonna find you,” Techno said firmly. “Now can you finish your stew, Tommy? Because I spent a lotta time making that, and you’ve already spilled, like, half of it onto my shoes. It’s just– it’s just kinda rude, Tommy, it’s kinda rude.”

Tommy laughed and picked up his spoon, but before he could take a bite, there came a frantic knocking from upstairs. He jerked, spilling stew all over his bedsheets in his haste to stand up, but Techno gripped his shoulder and gently pushed him back onto the bed.

“Relax, it isn’t Dream,” Techno said, “but keep quiet, alright? Gotta be prepared for any… surprises.”

Tommy nodded wordlessly, and his silence seemed to disturb Techno. Casting one final look in Tommy’s direction, Techno climbed the ladder and left Tommy in the dark.

Tommy’s pulse was a familiar drumbeat as he curled up as small as possible and clutched his hands tightly to his chest. He was alone, without even Tubbo to reassure him, and now someone new was entering his fragile bubble of safety. Not Dream, not Dream, Techno had promised it wasn’t Dream – but if not Dream, who?

Who else would have reason to visit Technoblade? 

The front door opened with a creak, and a familiar voice filtered down to the raccoon hole, low and frantic.

“They’re saying Tommy’s dead,” Ranboo said. “What _happened?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for illness/concussions/hallucinations throughout, as well as the after effects of trauma/emotional abuse (from c!dream) and some verbal abuse from the tubbo hallucination


End file.
